Every year, we survey our clients to understand their views, priorities and concerns for the coming year.
In 2018, we interviewed more than 300 global marketers and leaders across a broad spectrum of brands, including FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, and a large geographical footprint. From the results, we isolated 5 key considerations for marketers in 2019.
1. Creating personalised experiences is the #1 priority for marketers for 2019
According to our survey, 83% of marketers don’t believe brands will dominate over convenient experiences in the future. Consequently, it is no surprise that using data to create personalised consumer experiences is at the top of their 2019 marketing strategy. Interestingly, ‘maximising visibility and sales within online marketplaces’ and ‘developing a strategy for voice search and digital assistants’ see the strongest progression since last year.
2.Internal structure and managing high volumes of data are the most difficult challenges for 2019
According to our survey, 45% of marketers declare the lack of agility to quickly evolve their proposition based on consumer response is the biggest challenge for increasing trust. This lack of agility can be explained by the difficulties reported by marketers to collaborate efficiently inside their organisations and to properly manage high volumes of data.
3. Search, Social, Mobile and Content Marketing are key priority channels for 2019
Like last year, Search, Social, Mobile and Content Marketing top the rankings as the key priority channels for our respondents.
4. Google, Facebook and Amazon are the three critical partners for 2019
Google, Facebook and Amazon continue to make the top 3 as the companies impacting the most brands’ target audiences. Amazon is the platform with the greatest increase compared to last year, which shows that marketers are recognizing the increasing influence of “the everything store” in consumers’ lives: today, 41% of Amazon shoppers check prices on the platform, 27% shop less at retail stores and only 20% declare their shopping behaviour is not influenced at all by shopping on Amazon.
5. Voice search and bots are the two priority emerging channels for 2019
In our survey, 69% of marketers consider the rise of digital assistants as an opportunity for their brand to develop an even closer relationship with their consumers. It is thus logical that voice search and bots, two essential enablers of digital assistants, top marketers’ emerging channels ranking, way ahead of visual search, AR and VR.
In the iProspect 2018 Global Client Survey, we particularly focused on the contribution of trust to business growth. To access more stats, key insights and success stories on navigating truth and authenticity this year, download Future Focus 2019: Searching for Trust.
The report includes exclusive interviews with global business and thought leaders including Mark Thompson (CEO and President, The New York Times Company), Armin Molavi (Interim VP Media, Hilton), Mark Cripps (Chief Marketing Officer, The Economist), Vanja Mlaco (Digital Growth Strategist, Transavia), Carrie Seifer (Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, IBM Watson and Weather), Laurent Tiersen (Country Marketing Manager, IKEA UK & Ireland), Jonathan Foster (Principal Experiences Manager, Microsoft), Antoine Dubois (SVP Marketing Global Strategy, AccorHotels), Rachel Zoe (CEO, Rachel Zoe Inc.).
SOURCES:
[1]PWC, ‘Global Consumer Insights Survey 2018: New business models in the ecommerce era’, Sep 2017
